A Language Problem

As Stephen Colbert would undoubtedly crow: “We’re Number One! We’re Number One! USA! USA!” According to a recently released survey by the U.K.-based market research firm Ipsos MORI, more Americans doubt that climate change “is largely the result of human activity” than do citizens of 20 countries polled. Only 54 percent of Americans believe in human-caused climate change, with 32 percent disagreeing with the statement. In China, 93 percent of respondents accept human-caused climate change, with 5 percent disagreeing. In France and India, 80 percent of the populations are on board with the overwhelming majority of climate scientists. (Ipsos notes that India’s and China’s numbers reflect an “affluent and connected” segment of the populations responding to its online poll.)

What’s got pundits scratching their heads is that the top three climate-change-doubting countries are all English-speaking: the U.S., Great Britain, and Australia, in that order. Canada comes in at number seven, after Russia, Poland, and Japan.

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